NEW YORK - Bank of America Corp. will suffer "grave and irreparable harm" if Merrill Lynch & Co. employees paid $3.6 billion in bonuses just before the firm's acquisition by the bank are publicly identified, its lawyers said.
Translation: the LOOTING RECIPIENTS fear for their lives.
Bank of America filed documents in state court in Manhattan yesterday to intervene in a case brought by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to compel former Merrill chief executive John Thain to testify about the bonus recipients.
"Neither the individual names nor the job titles bear any reasonable or relevant relationship" to Cuomo's investigation, the firms argued in the documents. "Nor is there a reasonable or relevant reason to disclose such information to the general public."
Yeah, it's only OUR MONEY!!!
Cuomo has been examining whether Merrill broke securities laws when it paid the bonuses. He is cooperating with US Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky in a federal probe of executive pay at banks that received money from the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program. Merrill and Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America have received about $45 billion in TARP money.... --more--"
So why does government have to chase down the looting?
